Prettiest Porsche 911s—The Sliding-Glass Targas

When Ulrich Bez returned from BMW to Porsche to become its technical board director in October 1988, he found a senior management that thought the 911 had outworn its welcome. “The general view when I came was that we should do something new,” said Bez, “to make a new car.” This meant not a new 911, rather a new automobile.

After the flurry of decision-making that had marked Ernst Fuhrmann’s reign, Porsche had simply pressed on with variants of the cars that he and Helmuth Bott created. The traditional surrogate for the Porsche customer, Ferry Porsche, turned 79 in the month before Ulrich Bez took office. While Bez took care to cultivate his counsel and support, Ferry could no longer assume his traditional role as the company’s touchstone for new design concepts.